Lucretia: “nec ulla deinde impudica Lucretia exemplo vivet”

Lisa Feldkamp (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

The basic myth of Lucretia is the story of a chaste aristocratic matron who is threatened with rape by a tyrant, succumbs in order to avoid an ignominious fate, then tells one or more of her relatives about the crime, asks them for vengeance, and kills herself. No Roman history would be complete without this myth, the standard version of which is told by Livy in his Ab Urbe Condita. In Livy’s telling, before she kills herself, Lucretia proclaims, “nec ulla deinde impudica Lucretia exemplo vivet” (1.58.10). This has caused scholars such as Newlands and Calhoon to state that Lucretia desires to be an example for chaste women (1995, 1997). However, what Lucretia actually says is that she will not be an example for adulterous women. She does not explicitly state a desire to be a model for future women, and yet from Livy’s time down to the present she has been read as exemplary.

If Lucretia does not think of herself as an example, then who does? Is it her family, the author, or is it the reader? These are the questions that I will discuss in my paper. The bulk of the paper will focus on Livy, but I will look at Diodorus Siculus’ version, which may have influenced Livy, in order to make observations about how the elements that Livy adds to or leaves out from the story make Lucretia seem exemplary. Another important account is the one written by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who writes after Livy, but seems to be primarily working from a different source. I will also examine Ovid’s telling of the myth, which follows the outline of Livy, but with a shift in emphasis. I will argue that although his account of the myth encourages the reader to think of Lucretia as an example, it is a part of Lucretia’s character that she cannot desire this for herself. However, her relatives, and especially Brutus, begin immediately to use her as a model. As Joshel has noted, the women in Livy’s history act as buffers in relations between men (2002). I will argue that the Lucretia acts as a buffer between the negative example provided by Sextus and the positive one provided by Brutus.

Lucretia: “nec ulla deinde impudica Lucretia exemplo vivet”

Calhoon, Christina G. “Lucretia, Savior and Scapegoat: The Dynamics of Sacrifice in Livy 1.57-59.” Helios 24 (1997): 151-69.

Fox, Matthew. Roman Historical Myths: The Regal Period in Augustan Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Joshel, Sandra R. "The body female and the body politic: Livy's Lucretia and Verginia." Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World, edited by Laura K. Mc Clure, 163-187. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2002.

Newlands, Carole E. Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti. Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1995.